Christmas Wishes

As always very busy during this time of year. But to keep up, I will share some of our own holiday to add to your own.

I enjoyed making my children`s Christmas stockings from complete scratch with felt and fur. I did not have a pattern, so it really came from my heart. I cut out all kinds of little Christmas things, sewed them on and created a winter scene. My grown children still want them out to see on Christmas morning.

When they were young, my children always made their own Christmas cards. Each of my them would draw a festive picture and a nice message for inside. I would take them to a printer and have the image put on a color card stock. They were a half page for easy printing and folding. They had a wonderful time sending them out to friends and family!

Leading to the big day we would attend church and the kids were always involved with all kinds of Christmas programs and recitals. Over the years my son Timothy could be seen singing in a choir , my daughter Emily in ballet with the Nutcracker and my youngest son Samuel blessing little Jesus with a gift as a wise man. We would also attend all kinds of different functions ourselves such as, plays, concerts, and light displays.

Of course we made our Christmas cookies and to this day the kids still love to decorate and eat them(That is something they will never grow out of, thank goodness!)
We eat them Christmas morning with coffee while opening our gifts. Later we have biscuits and gravy before heading off to have Christmas with grandparents.

We spend a lot of time with family from both sides from Christmas eve on and never forget the true meaning of the celebration of the birth of Jesus! Our traditions are so wonderful to us that Christmas would not be Christmas without them , no matter how old you are!

Find something or someone in your community to help bless during the holidays. It is good to teach your children about others who are in need and think about the world outside of your own. This year we are corresponding with a little girl from Mexico and look forward making her part of our life!

Build your tradition every year and make them special so your children can have the beautiful memories in their heart and carry them to their own families.

God bless you all and have a wonderful love filled Christmas and Happy New Year!!
See you in January!
The York family

Welcome to the Holidays~Thanksgiving

As the winter wind begins the blow in so do the holidays. We always want to get an early start, but before we know it we are well into them. While we are teaching our children include holiday activities. If you teach about pilgrims coming to America, do some research on your books to get an accurate lesson. Bring in fun with your teaching with homemade pilgrim hats and Indian headbands. Wear them for an early Thanksgiving feast and have them bring cut apples and popcorn to share. A Thanksgiving tradition you can start is to have the children write one thing per piece of paper something they are thankful for. Put them all in a basket and read them on Thanksgiving. Also a craft that is old fashion and still wonderful is a hand traced turkey with colorful feathers. Have children decorate the holiday table with their own beautiful art!

Thanksgiving cooking is a great time to get your children in the kitchen. Do it early and freeze or prepare it the before the busy day. Here are some thoughts and find a recipe that fits your child`s age.

Apple crisp
Pumpkin drop cookies
Corn bread
Pumpkin pie
Spice box cake with powdered sugar on top

Let your child help set the table, be a host, help serve,and clean up. It will be a Thanksgiving loving memory to treasure for years.

Your Sketchbook~Autumn Time
Now that the leaves are falling it`s time to draw! Gather three different types of leaves and draw them in your sketchbook. Find a bare tree and add it to your book and maybe a milkweed that still has seeds about to take to the sky. Get out there before it gets too cold, young artists!

A little writing out to do ~Falling Leaves~
A little song I learned in school, I don`t have a way to sing you the melody, but it was so lovely and was called `Falling Leaves`. We would write it out and sing it to a melody each child made up themselves. The author is unknown sadly, but here are the words:

Falling leaves, falling leaves,
Winds will blow you away.
Falling leaves, falling leaves,
Winds will blow you away.
Oh uncle, oh cousin,
Oh uncle, oh cousin.
Sound the horn and we will follow,
Sound the horn and we will go!

You may also write it out and decorate beautiful fall leaves around.

Reading during the holidays.
The Tale Squirrel Nutkin by Beatrix Potter. These books are not easy for a child to read but fun to try(even for us adults). It`s a great adventure and a brisk little story about a silly squirrel teasing an old owl. Activity~ Wrap a outdoor edible gift for Old Brown! What would you give him? Enjoy!

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl~ One of the best! So much fun to read aloud and laugh endlessly! Your child will always remember the book over the movie if you introduce the amazing Willie Wonka via literature. Activity~ Make a family tree with names on leaves and pictures. Also our favorite, make and create your own invention of candy. If you feel lead check out the movie, Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory with Gene Wilder. It is wonderful!! Have fun reading!!

As always during the holidays be blessed and go bless others with your children. Find a family you can look out for or find someone in need in your city or through your church. Our true blessing is to be able to bless another!!

With love to all homeschool famlies!

October Sky

While the wild winds of October blow and bring in cooler weather, so do more great homeschooling times! We always loved the really crisp fall days and jacket atmosphere around us. Sometimes life was just too good to be true! Just like the change of weather it is time to stop and be grateful of the time you get to spend with your children and the chance YOU get to be the greatest influence in their education. Truly love it. It can be hard and like everything else always wondering if it is the right thing to be doing. Your heart will tell you. Always stop and restart your heart. It is there.

A must have book that always helped me is A Charlotte Mason Companion. To this day I can still read it and feel the amazing love I had for teaching my own children. This is told by Karen Andreola and it should never leave your side. It covers everything and sheds new light on things you never thought of. I was so reeducated and found love for so many things myself. Please get this book and find a beautiful way to your childs heart and your own.


Collecting leaves~Such a great outdoor activity is always collecting and labeling leaves. Go out into the neighborhood and ask to gather leaves from your neighbor. Rich colors and shapes will help your child discover trees. Have a tree guide and prepare a booklet to draw the assortment, add color, and write the name of the tree. You may also add pods, seeds, cones,and nuts. You can later display your treasure on a table or make a Nature Jar. Fill a clear glass jar with an assortment of shapes and colors to keep or give away.

An Apple a Day~ What a good time to learn the different names of apples. They also have shape,size,and color that can be fun to compare. The best place to make this happen is your grocery store. Take an apple tour, buy a few pounds, then head home for some wonderful apple crisp! Take time to draw some of the different apples, maybe write a poem, paint with apple halves and in the springtime plant an apple tree.

A Pumpkin Patch~ Read and understand how pumpkins grow. A great trip is to visit a pumpkin patch where the actually grow on the vine. Hopefully a hay ride is involved and a wheel barrel to gather a cute little pumpkin for each of your children. An art project to do at home is take a small lunch paper bag and fill it with paper shreds. Twist the tip~top and paint it green and the large part orange and let it dry. Tie green yarn to all you make and you have your very own pumpkin patch. Later in the spring plant pumpkin seeds and watch the vines spread. You may even get a pumpkin!

A Robert Frost poem~ A beautiful and easy poem to memorize. Like spring into winter, so is life. It is featured in the book The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton a must for older children. This is best with a study guide. A hard but great story(you may want to read it first) Also a movie and a beautiful scene of the reciting of this poem.

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature`s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf`s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

Have your children also write this out in the center of a nice piece of paper and with color draw pictures of spring,summer,fall to winter things around the poem. Frame and display.

Young reading~ Little Bear`s Friend by Else Holmelund Minarik~pictures by Marice Sendak. This a superb book, I loved it as a child and the friendship really comes to life.

Middle read~ Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder pictures by Garth Willams. An amazing story of Laura`s husband, Almanzo, as a child. My son and I read a chapter of this book every night when he was about ten. We had a study guide and did activties during the day. He did a report and made a life-size Almanzo, out of paper and displayed it at the library`s homeschool Famous People exhibit, where he proudly stood by. Later that year we went to Mansfield,Missouri to visit Almanzo and Laura`s home and grave. It was very touching and meant more to all of us since we got to know him. It is one of my favorite memories!

As you teach your young children and prepare them to go out on their own to bless others, remember one of my favorite quotes by artist Paul Cezanne ~ `With an apple, I will astonish Paris!`

Nothing is too small to take our breath away! ~ My words to that.
Danna

Wonderful Weather

Did you ever look out the door and say "I wish I could keep this beautiful day forever"? Well of course you can! Your little rays of sunshine can keep an all-year weather journal. A simple spiral notebook will do. Set up your page: date at the top~below: time of day, temperature,sky observation,wind direction,speed,and draw a picture. You can miss some days, but as you go and look back, you will see a cool change of weather.

Sample:

Date: October 1,2010
Time: 10:00 am ~you can do same time each day or not~learn am/pm
Temp: 62 ~learn symbols: temp,etc.
Sky: Sunny
Wind: from the North~ 15 mph ~ learn NSEW directions and mph~check out the Beaufort Scale.
A beautiful drawing!

Find a Beaufort Scale and learn wind speeds by watching a flag or wind sock. The chart will also show you damages the wind can do. It is a fun chart to study!

A cloud chart is important to keep up. From fog to cumulo-nimbus, learning the types of clouds and names is great for weather watching. Look up at the clouds daily and log in your journal. You don`t have to be exact to do a good job.

A weather station is a hands-on way to study weather. Find directions and put up an area for a rain gauge,a wind vane,an anemometer,barometer, a wind sock and wind chimes. Go out to it and journal what you find. My dream was to always have a weather station~ sometimes we just had a few things and we always worked on it through the changing seasons. Let your backyard be your classroom!!

You can make weather watching as simple as possible from large calender and place a picture of: sunny, rainy, cloudy,or stormy ~ on the day~or just draw a picture. Just go out doors and talk about the weather. Use your 5 senses along with your talk: touch,taste,hear,feel and smell. Make a felt person and dress it accordingly, cut out the clothes yourself. It will all come alive to your little ones. No one is too young to learn.

For older kids you can add more weather symbols, past wild weather reports, a "What is" lightning,thunder,snow,wind,or rain. Write a report on; hurricanes, tornadoes, or floods. Learn the earth`s atmosphere layers, build a tornado jar, dissect a hailstone...and so much more.

Have a weather radio and keep up on the daily outlook and
build your library with books on weather and experiments.

Your weather watch will keep your child busy and learning about an important part of each day all year long!

Book to read for young children: Frog and Toad All Year Long~ Any Frog and Toad book by Arnold Lobel. They always tell about friendship and fun with the weather. Have them tell their own stories of Frog and Toad using an umbrella, raincoat,a snowman or a kite. Of course they can draw it on paper too.

Older: Tall Tales! Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill,and John Henry~ these are stories that are humorous and exaggerated. Then write your own Tall Tale! Ideas: a tornado, a rodeo horse or a missing lake! Have several of your friends write one or two and get together for a night of laughter. Don`t forget the popcorn!

No matter what the weather is, you can enjoy it!!

Fall is around the corner!

September is finally here!! The new school is fully under way!! How exciting to feel the new school year breeze on your face!! I just love the weather when we all start to get into our work. Depending on where you live, you may experience the changing seasons. It is the best science and nature study you can have. It`s all around you and it`s free. An amazing gift. Have a table or box set up for your child to fill with cool things they find. Everything from seeds to rocks. Use them later to identify, draw, or just collect. Little collections of any kind are great for kids!! It gets them interested in something. Do any kind of autumn study with books,hikes,and projects!

Field trip: Go to a cider mill. Nothing beats fall like the taste of cider and donuts! The best treat for a new school year!

Note: Check out my book ~To the Cider Mill~ a draw along with the story book.(fb search to the cider mill) by Danna York

Young kids read: The Runaway Bunny~ by M.Wise Brown. Draw a picture of your bunny running away to an apple orchard.

Older kids read a novel: Old Yeller by Fred Gipson. A great book with a sad ending. Ages 11 and up. Don`t grow up with out it!

I`d like to know if you are out there and enjoy the posts. Also tell us about your homeschool!

HAPPY FALL!

Nature Study~ Your Backyard

It`s amazing what we can find in our own backyard. Sometimes we are too busy to look, but a lot is there. A great fall/winter project is a area for bird feeding. This brings so much life right out your back door. A large old table can hold a nice assortment of seed, bread and any other bird food. It also makes for a good space for the birds to gather. Sometimes it will be full of birds all colors and sizes for your child to observe! You may also add feeders to hang and make your own. Your child can do a `study observation` of; month, time of day, birds,color,and anything they would like to add. They can put this in their sketchbook or begin a Bird Study booklet to watch the changes through the winter, when things really start to get exiting! Don`t forget to keep it up so the birds know where the best restaurants are! Also find a site the gives your child a great listen of bird calls to learn and a little field guide to help identify.

Room tip~ Make and hang something seasonal in your room.This can make your room feel warm and cozy~ideas~ fall leaves, apples with faces, a hanging pumpkin patch. This an also stay up until November.

Sketchbook~ Draw a apple and pear, side by side. This can be colorful by adding color pencil or watercolor with watercolor paper. Great watercolors I suggest are Prang. Mount on paper and hang for all to see.

Your School Room

This is something that could have been done early, but into September is fine. It`s arranging your place of schooling. There are many different ways to set up. We always enjoyed a separate room that we could leave, like a room in a down stairs or off to the side,that would not be disturbed during the rest of the day. A nice table or desk is good, depending on the child`s age. Things can change from year to year to motivate your child. The room can be fun and exciting with decorations done by your kids, they will be very proud of their space. Also let them play classical music while they study, Mozart will be happy to assist! Keep school supplies ONLY for that room so things don`t get lost,we can waste time looking for scissors. Keep books and papers organized in a bin for each child and a place for your things. This can keep the day running smooth. I will be adding `Room Tip`or `Tool Tip` as I see to keep the room rolling!

Room Tip~ Put up a verse or quote on the wall to encourage your child, change weekly.

Do what you can, where you are, with what you have. ~ Teddy Roosevelt~

Sketchbook~ Take you child on a sketching hike and picnic in your own back yard. You will see some new and beautiful things. Point out some very small things to draw,like the inside of a flower.

The Faithful ~ The Old Farmers Almanac~

One of the`must haves`in your library is an almanac. I prefer the The Old Farmers Almanac. If you don`t know,these handy little books have so much science and nature stored in them and are so fun to read. Information on planets,stars,meteor showers, eclipses, day to day and seasonal events. You purchase one for every year and it`s best to buy before the new year begins. My three always enjoyed looking forward to a moon eclipse and jotting down times and drawing a sketch of what the moon looked like every 15 min or so. So much fun! Always a great heads up for you and your child!

Topic for your child to write about:
MY MOST MEMORABLE PET STORY ~write and picture or just picture~ always read or tell aloud to your family.


Little drops of water,
Little grains of sand,
Make the mighty ocean,
And the pleasant land. ~ by Julia A. Fletcher Carney

Draw a picture of this and place the poem at the bottom.

The year long SKETCHBOOK!

All that summer fun brings me to our next school tool, the sketchbook! There are many sizes of sketchbooks around,so any you like will be fine. Keep it handy and you can make it part of your school day. An easy way to begin, maybe during a break or while you prepare lunch,have your child go out into their backyard and have them draw something they like. You can give them instructions to draw leaves one day and something else the next day like a tree or birdhouse. Whatever is in your yard. This will bring your own backyard and child to life!! You may also enter the time of day,weather,and details of their subject. This is also called nature journaling. They can create stories from this and have fun sharing!! Please encourage they need no drawing abilities, their pictures will be beautiful and their skills will develop just fine. They can add color pencil or watercolor,but pencil will do. This is a great way to get a keepsake of their art work and enjoy it for years to come. During the year I will post sketchbook notes to help keep it going. Let me know how it goes!

New School Year!

While the new school year is upon us it`s time to reflect on the educational summer we are leaving. Little do our kids know we do more learning when we think we are just having fun. Take time to have your child write or draw about some things they did that they enjoyed. You will be happy to know what stood out in their hearts. This is a great way to ease in the new school year and your homeschooler will be excited to begin!

Welcome to Hello Homeschool!

I am here to to begin writing about my journey of homeschooling and encourage you with yours. I want to share my triumphs, advice and love for the most amazing time of yours and your childs life. If you are new you are giving your child your most precious gift, it`s not easy, but so rewarding! If you`re a mom on the long road and need encouraging words or your homeschooling your last child and are feeling a little lost, I have something for everyone!

This is whats new to me, being on the computer and blogging. So as soon as I embark on THIS new journey (if I can homeschool my kids I can do anything) I will be flooding your life with mine. It will include our homeschool days, using your talents,(dust them off) discovering your childs, all kinds of creative ideas,
taking care of yourself, your husband involved and you teaching your children
to love LEARNING! I am excited to be here and can`t wait to tell you more. So be positive, keep in touch and ENJOY THE DAY! God bless you.

~Danna~

Hello Homeschool!

Welcome to Hello, homeschool !